Tidbits
by Restless Abhorsen
Summary: A random collection of one-shots for a friend.
1. Chapter 1

Stay

Theme song: _Stay_ by Zedd

* * *

Judy stirred in her bed. She felt cold against her side and back, it was much less favorable to the warmth that was there a moment ago. She turned over and threw off the covers. Sitting up, she looked around her bedroom, searching for the source of the warmth and where he had gone.

The early summer sunlight shined through the vanilla colored blinds, fully lighting her generic colored apartment bedroom; at least the small, two-bedroom apartment she inhabited currently was much nicer than her old, closet-sized studio. Even though she lived alone, Judy typically kept the door to her room closed, a hold-over from growing up in a house where you had to fight for every bit of privacy you could get, but right now that door was left wide open for some reason. Through it she could hear someone shuffling around the living room; as well as a soft, muttered curse.

Getting out of bed, she took a quick glance in the mirror; she looked like a hot mess. Her eye shadow was smeared, along with her lip gloss, her hair was mashed and tangled, and her foundation had rubbed off – so much so that she could see herself blush as she remembered last night's activities that lead to this state.

Smiling, she picked up a ponytail holder off the vanity and fixed her hair, before turning back to the bed and grabbing the flat sheet. Wrapping it around herself, she checked the mirror again. Much better. It looked like a long purple gown once it was draped around her – sort of. Her hope was to have the upper hand in the coming conversation if she were covered.

Clothed with her modesty-preserving sheet, she made her way into the hallway, going towards the now constant string of mumbled speech. Stopping at the entryway to the living room, Judy leaned against the wall, holding the sheet closed at her side with one hand – it had the propensity to slide open over her leg in the short walk from the bedroom – and keeping it from falling off her breasts with the other.

In the room, Nick was on his hands and knees, looking for something beneath the couch. A part of Judy realized she should be miffed, he was trying to leave without her knowing, like this was some one-night stand. But the rest of her told that part to shut up and enjoy the view of his fine ass sticking up in the air. He had thrown on his button down shirt, but it wasn't covering his rear given his current position.

Judy savored the view for another moment before noisily clearing her throat. "Ahem. What'ca lookin' for slick?"

Startled, Nick's head shot up, straight into the underside of the couch, producing a soft _thwump_ and a muffled 'son of a bitch'. After he properly freed himself, he stood up and turned around to face Judy. This gave her yet another view as, in his apparent rush, Nick had forgotten to button up his shirt front; leaving his lean, powerful chest exposed – among other things. She wasn't sure how he did it, but Judy had to admit, he managed to look goofy, cute, and sexy, all at the same time. He stood in the middle of the living room, running his left hand through his messy, red hair; while his right held his balled up boxers, his hard-won prize from the world of lost items that existed beneath all couches.

He was avoiding Judy's gaze, looking all around the room before settling on the pictures on the wall. That was particularly interesting, and said much about Nick in this moment; he was so embarrassed that he found it easier to stare down the photos of her family then face her. All while standing in the center of her home mostly naked. Which, for the time being, was perfectly fine for her.

Eventually, he cleared his throat and turned his head to her. As warm, green eyes met hers, Judy felt a flutter pass through her stomach; the damn butterflies from last night were back. He must have noticed a change in her because he smirked – his old, cocky swagger returning despite being caught flatfooted in his nudity. "Just looking for my clothes, Carrots," he answered smoothly. He would have stuck his hands in his pockets, if he had any; instead he motioned to her make-shift dress while rocking back onto his heels. "Something you apparently couldn't be bothered with. Odd, given that this is your apartment and it's literally full of your things. No reason to be so unprepared, Carrots."

"That's because I'm not the one trying to sneak out of my partners place, Nick."

At her accusatory tone Nick's confidence fled and he flopped down on the couch. "I'm sorry, Car-Judy," he sighed. "I just don't know what to do about…this." He waved his hand between the two of them.

Judy frowned as she made her way over to join him, sitting down in a rustle of fabric. Nick wouldn't dare say it now, or maybe ever, but Judy looked damn sexy. Hair up in a ponytail, accentuating her neck and slender shoulders, holding a slip of cloth over her naked form, hell he even thought the messed up make-up added to her beauty at the moment. He'd bet good money that she would still look good in a Lady Gaga-esque dress made of trash bags. Nick was smitten, fully, completely – and he couldn't bring himself to care.

Judy's voice snapped his attention back into place. "So you figured you'd leave before I woke up?"

"Well…it's not a strategy that's failed me before." He spoke sheepishly. "I mean, I haven't so close to someone before, Judy. Never actually allowed myself to care for someone as I do you."

She looked down, Nick's hands were fidgeting with his boxers as he sat, reaching out she grabbed them, causing his hands to still as they looked up to each other. She smiled softly when he continued to look at her, confused and worried. "Then stay, Nick. Stay here and we can figure this out – together. We don't go back on shift until late tonight, we have all day to define what we are. Maybe you can take me on an actual date this afternoon," she laughed, playful bumping his shoulder.

"Okay, okay, Carrots," he chuckled with her.

"Good. No need for running, Slick." She stood, grabbing her sheet again with both hands and making her way toward the hallway. "Now as for me, I'm going to shower and get ready for the day. Someone insisted on getting a little dirty last night."

"Yeah, it certainly wasn't this innocent, little farm girl I know," he drolled.

Looking over her shoulder, Judy smiled coquettishly and caught Nick's eye. Once she had his attention, she dropped the sheet and continued down the hallway to the bedroom, letting her hips sway a little more than was necessary, nearly causing Nick to fall off the couch as he leaned over to watch her.

From the bedroom, he could hear her call out. "You know, it's a shame my building's super still hasn't come by to fix the lock on the bathroom door."

Weather that was true or not didn't matter to Nick, he knew an invitation when he heard one, and he jump up from the couch to follow her. Whatever they were relationship-wise could be figured out later. For now, his day just got better.


	2. Chapter 2

Nighttime Surprise

A Caoihme and Silas short AU

* * *

Wiping the sweat off her drenched forehead, for the third time in just a couple of minutes, Caoihme sighed and tucked her bangs back behind her ear. Earlier, her hair had been pulled back into a stylish bun/braid mix, but the night's activities were slowly undoing all her careful work, and now it was scattered, half out, and slick with perspiration.

Pulling out her phone, she checked the time - 9:27 pm - seventeen minutes past schedule; and that meant she was going to be late for her date with Silas at the movies. A loud crash yanked Caoihme's attention from her phone and back to the task at hand. Baggie finally made it outside after rushing down the stairs and slamming her body up against the metal door to the lecture hall, keeping it closed for the time being. Now they were both more or less trapped outside – a funny thought by itself - with a small horde of zombies temporarily stuck inside the building with their three necromancer masters, not the _one_ the Agency had told them to capture in their briefing.

Now probably wasn't the best time to be worrying about her date.

"Raven! Where's our backup?" Baggie grunted, using Caoihme's alias.

Magic and monsters and the like used to be a well-kept secret, but in the past few decades the other races pushed out from the shadows, and monster attacks began to become a common occurrence, and so humanity could no longer hide from the facts. Thus, the creation of the Agency.

The Agency was designed as a sort of problem solver; a group dedicated to finding and training those with magic and special talents to fight those who abused their powers and knowledge of the arcane arts, generally keeping the peace of the public - where magic or meta-humans were involved that is.

It was still a small group, with only a dozen or so agents operating in any given city, and they thought it prudent to protect the identities of those that worked for them, hence the aliases. They were picked by the agent themselves. Some chose to share their real names with their partners, but many stood by the old adage: the less you know, the better.

"I don't know," she shouted over the banging of the door. "They haven't responded or called back."

"You sure your message went through?" she asked. Digging her heels into the sidewalk and straining to keep the door closed, despite her supernatural strength.

Magic interfered with modern technology. It didn't out right stop things from working, it just made things act…wrong. When Caoihme was a teen, and just learning of her powers, she unintentionally destroyed four microwaves and two cell phones; her father said they were too expensive for her to get a third. Later, work-arounds were developed, but when magic was heavy in the air they proved too weak to break through the interference.

Which meant it was very possible Baggie and Caoimhe may not be getting the help they needed.

"I don't know, maybe? Oh shit, we are in trouble." Caoihme covered her eyes and began pacing up and down the sidewalk, taking deep, even breaths to prepare to cast a spell – she had already used up her spells for the day, if she cast another it would probably knock her unconscious, or possibly worse.

"Baggi, we've got to do something. We can't outlast these guys."

"What are you thinking?"

"I don't know, but we've got to try something! We can't let these things get out." She raised her head, eyes darting left and right. "I guess…I guess we'll have to go out swingin'."

The young half-orc looked around, trying to think of anything else they could do, but came up blank. "Okay, it's our best chance. Besides, together I think we'll still get 'em." She smiled a wolfish grin, made more poignant by her lower fangs. "Tell me when."

If only Caoihme shared in her confidence.

Caoihme nodded and stopped her pacing some fifteen feet from the door. Twenty-four and basically a magical sheriff, she knew this day may come, the day she faced her own mortality, but she never actually believed it would. Kind of like agreeing to the end user license agreement – you check the box saying you read it but you never even read the words 'end user license agreement'. This job is dangerous and violent, death is always a possibility, but you never think it will be your death to worry about.

Raising her arms, she began casting the spell. Trying, but failing, to stop her hands from shaking. Closing her eyes, she focused on the magic within herself, there were only a few things that calmed her whenever she got nervous; her magic was one. With a final steadying breath, she began the incantation and complex hand movements for her spell; magic took everything of the caster and now, more so than ever before, it was a do-or-die endeavor.

Bringing her left hand up to her chest, she shaped her fingers into the form needed to gather and focus the energy to come. With her right she reached up to her ear, loosely cupping the crystal-obsidian earring her mother gave her, long ago she tuned it to use as an arcane focus, allowing her to access the magic that rested within her blood.

Ethereal, spidery words slipped from between her lips, between her fingers a small, steady orange glow began to grow. The language of magic was complicated and esoteric, befitting the mind-boggling affects it had on the physical world; just trying to learn it gave young Caoihme headaches. It was no wonder why wizards, the poor souls who had to tap the weave of magic through complex recipes, incantations, and hand motions – rather than their blood, like Caoihme – were often more than a little cracked in the head.

In a few heartbeats a small fire had grown in her left hand. Nodding to Baggie, Caoihme signaled her readiness. Kicking off of the door, Baggie leapt away from the danger, rolling to her feet and pulling out the sword that hung from her back, before turning back to face the oncoming mob.

As her partner moved, Caoihme's hands joined together at her chest, cupping the little flame between them, which flared and pulsed as it fought to free itself from its bounds. The zombies within the building pushed open the door, knocking off its hinges with a loud metallic boom.

That was when Caoihme let the flame have its wish.

Pushing her hands out from her chest, she released a torrent of flame into the night. Hungry fire leapt onto the first zombies out of the door, their rotted flesh burning and their bones blackening as the mockery of life that the necromancers put in them fled. In seconds the only evidence of the undead minions were six small piles of ash. The building around the doorway was scorched black, and the fallen door glowed red in the darkness.

If the remaining zombies had any semblance of life in them, they would have feared for their safety, but they did not, and so they surged through the unobstructed passage. Caoihme, exhausted from the magic leaving her body, sagged to the ground, landing on her knees, her arms felt it they were made of lead. She was too tired to even draw the knife she had the back of her belt; not that it would have done her any good, she hardly ever practiced with it.

Baggie however, excited to start hitting something again, charged into the mass of foes, swinging her greatsword about as if it were a willow branch. The first zombie proved the unluckiest as it was the first to be cleaved in two, its arms were still reaching for Baggie's throat as its legs flopped uselessly to the ground.

As more came through, their clustering made it harder for her to gather the momentum for such a powerful attack again, but as a trained fighter, Baggie was able to move and attack just safely enough to guard herself and attract most of the mob's attention. Of the ten left only two escaped her grasp, one stuck to the back of the group, taking its time to move around the mob gathering around Baggie.

The other, followed the first through the door, but ran to the side of Baggie's attacks, straight to Caoihme.

"Raven!" Baggie cried out.

Caoihme's eyes popped open, just in time to see the snarling face of the zombie as it flashed by and bit into her shoulder. Fumbling for her knife, she screamed as its claws raked down her arm and across her throat, drawing blood and tearing her blouse to shreds, but luckily missing the artery in her neck.

It destroyed the wards of power and concentration she had carefully sewn into her shirt with silver thread. Ruining hours of sewing and days of steadily feeding power from herself to charge them; it was long, draining work. Lamenting about her blouse's demise oddly helped Caoihme from worrying about her own.

The zombie continued to flail away at her. By the third strike she attempted to push the fiend off of her, feebly pushing against its head. Her arm felt like it was a wet noddle, slapping uselessly at her foe. Caoihme never felt that she was one for fatalism, but she didn't have the energy to keep pushing – even if she had, she doubted she was stronger than this monster.

"Caoihme!"

She heard someone shout. Probably Baggie, she was such a nice girl, always doing her best to protect her friends, but there was only so much she could do while watching out for her own back.

The zombie reared its head, its mouth red with blood, her blood, Caoihme thought with rising horror. It screeched, preparing to bite out her jugular, it almost seemed to be laughing at her as she laid helpless, sounding strangely like the laughter of the cloaked necromancer that sicced this horde on her and Baggie.

Before the foul beast could strike, an arm wrapped around its shoulder and chest, and heaved the creature up and away from her. Caoihme tiredly turned her head to see a man standing above her, thick arms and broad shoulders where all she could make out before he flipped the zombie over himself, it landed with a thud that shook the ground.

Sprawled out, the zombie stayed on the ground, stunned much like Caoihme, as the man raised a glowing quarterstaff in his hands and brought it down, crushing the zombie's head with a resounding crack. Luckily, the man stood between the zombie and Caoihme, otherwise the blood and other matter would have been all over her and not the man's pants.

The man's shoulders heaved as he regained his breath. As he stood there, Caoihme examined his staff; which itself didn't seem to be anything special, what was odd were the green runes, softly glowing up and down its length, interspersed amongst flowing filigree. Druid magic.

The man finally turned around and knelt down next to Caoihme. Laying his staff down, he quickly began to inspect her wounds. The sounds battle continued to come from Baggie, and hopefully the help the man brought with him.

Finished with his inspection, he cupped his hands before his mouth and whispered into them, as he spoke a soft, golden-white light emerged from between his fingers, and slowly, tenderly he put his hands over her wounds. Closing her eyes, she let the blessedly warm light ease the pain and horror from her mind as her skin closed up, following the trail of his hands as they hovered from her neck to her upper chest and shoulder, then down her arm.

"Seems like you wore the wrong shirt tonight dear," a familiar voice chuckled.

Caiohme's eyes slowly, lazily opened and focused on her rescuer's face. Warm green eyes stared back down on her, crinkled in the corners from a lot of time spent outside and smiling. She'd recognize those eyes anywhere. Though the look within them was something new; relief mixed sorrow and rage.

"Silas..." she drifted off. Surely this druid wasn't her boyfriend, she raised a hand to his face, cupping it gingerly – just before giving his cheek a hard pinch.

"Ow! What the hell was that for?!"

"Had to see if I was dreaming," she said matter of factly. Then she gave him a soft, sweet smile. "I'm glad I'm not. But I am really confused as to why and how you're here."

Silas rubbed his cheek sullenly. "Yeah, well next time pinch yourself dummy. And we're here to save your sorry ass." He looked up and checked on the battle. He saw his partner, Narek, pull his shortsword out from the chest of the final zombie.

"Hey, don't be mean, I'm hurt," she pouted.

"Correction: you were hurt. I just healed you, you should be fine now."

"Yes, but I'm terribly tired."

"I bet, we saw your pyrotechnics as we were running across the parking lot," he commented absentmindedly as he carefully picked her up and carried her over to their partners. "You guys okay?"

"Yeah, fine," Baggie panted out.

"I have no complaints," Narek said. The tall cat-man calmly wiped the blood off his sword before sliding it home in its sheath. Caoihme had never met one of the feline-humanoid people, this one was intimating as he stared at her coldly. Silas seemed at ease around him, so surely he wasn't that bad.

"Good. Narek, go look upstairs and see what's left," Silas ordered. The cat-man simply nodded and made his way into the building. Silas turned back to Baggie, Caoimhe contently swinging in his arms as she rested her head against his chest. "Are you sure you're okay? You're bleeding quite a bit."

Baggie shook her head as she pressed a bandage to her arm, only one of the spots blood seemed to be coming from. "I'm fine, it's nothing that is a danger to me. How is Caoimhe?" she asked with concern.

"She'll be okay, just needs some rest now. But we'll go see the doctor back at headquarters to make sure. Same goes for you." He said sternly. Baggi merely shrugged and started double checking to make sure all the zombies were dead.

Silas continued to hold Caoimhe as they waited for Narek to return. After a few minutes she looked up at Silas, who was busy watching their surroundings, and licked her lips; she really wanted some water right now. "Hey," she said softly, "what did you mean I wore the wrong shirt?"

"Hmm?" He looked back down to her, confused before smiling at her. "Oh, well I recognize this shirt and some others you have in the closet. Now that I know you use magic I can also recognize these wards and channels for what they are. And I know that there are a couple of shirts you have that are warded for protection and not spell strengthening like this one."

"Oh," she sighed, she was getting tired and couldn't keep her eyes open. She snuggled closer into Silas rested her head again. Somewhere people were talking, sometimes it was Silas, she could feel the vibrations in his chest as he spoke, but she didn't care to try and make out what was being said. Before drifting off she had to know something though. "Hey Silas."

"Yes dear," he responded as they began moving somewhere.

"Are you mad at me for lying about who I am and what I've been doing?"

He chuckled. She was dimly aware of the sounds of car doors opening, before she was lowered into a seat. The warmth she felt from Silas left, leaving her slightly disgruntled, but not for long as it came back when he sat next to her.

"I'm not mad, Caoimhe." He gently guided her head up with one hand as the other pulled her close and secured her seatbelt. "This just means there's more to you that I get to find out."

She smiled at him as he pecked her forehead with a kiss. Warmth and relief calmed her to sleep as the car pulled out and headed back to base. She may be out for a little while, but with Silas, she could weather anything.


End file.
